While Toto Wolff is confident his team is making progress, after another (much like last year) below-par start to their Formula 1 campaign, the Mercedes boss does not believe in a magic bullet aka instant success.
Aston Martin might beg to differ, they indeed found a magic bullet in their arsenal and are out-shooting Mercedes, their engine suppliers! The once serial F1 world champs and relentless winners are on a losing streak that has only produced a single victory in the past two seasons, the one Geroge Russell scored, while seven-time F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton is going through the longest winless streak of his illustrious career.
Heading to Round 4, buoyed by Hamilton’s second place Down Under earlier this month, Wolff previewed the team’s prospects for this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku: “We’ve had a few weeks off from racing but both factories have been hard at work. We’ve tried to maximise this period, bringing planned development to the car and extracting as much as possible from our learnings so far.”
Wolff: Australia showed that we are making progress
The Merc team boss continued: “Although we need to be cautious about reading too much into a single result. But the signs in Melbourne were still encouraging and that has been a good motivator for the whole team heading into this gap in the calendar.
“Over the next races, we want to keep on making small steps forward. The car will continue to evolve in the coming weeks, as we steadily bring performance and upgrades to the track. We’re excited to see their impact, but we know there is no magic bullet.
“After just under a month with no F1 action, everyone’s eager to be back out on track. Thankfully we’ve got plenty of that coming up. It’s a busy window in the calendar with five races in six weekends, starting with Azerbaijan.”
Mercedes look forward to new F1’s new Sprint Race weekend format
Mercedes have won the Grand Prix in Baku on two of the five occasions it has been held at the tricky, fast and slow street circuit, with Hamilton winning in 2018 and Valtteri Bottas doing the same a year later. Last year, Russell and Lewis were third and fourth respectively.
As for the first Sprint Race weekend ahead, Wolff said: “The racing in Baku is always dramatic and entertaining. It’s a challenging track with the walls close, so there’s no room for error. We also have our first F1 Sprint weekend of the season with a tweaked format.
“It’s an interesting challenge for us to tackle, with only a single practice session to be ready for two qualifying sessions and races spread across Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully, this will mean more excitement and action for fans to enjoy.”
Ahead of Round 4 of the 2023 F2 World Championship weekend in Baku, the standings look decidedly bleak for Mercedes:
